With Towne Crier's opening, it's all coming together for Beacon

Music venue helps improve long-blighted midtown

When Phil Ciganer stood on the stage of the Towne Crier in Pawling on New Year's Eve 2011 and announced that he would be closing the historic venue once his lease expired, suggestions and offers as to where he could relocate came in immediately. As in: that very same night.

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By Brian P.J. Cronin

recordonline.com

By Brian P.J. Cronin

Posted Oct. 4, 2013 at 2:00 AM

By Brian P.J. Cronin

Posted Oct. 4, 2013 at 2:00 AM

» Social News

When Phil Ciganer stood on the stage of the Towne Crier in Pawling on New Year's Eve 2011 and announced that he would be closing the historic venue once his lease expired, suggestions and offers as to where he could relocate came in immediately. As in: that very same night.

“One of the members of the horn section who was playing that night and ringing in the new year came up to me and said, 'Hey, I'm a contractor. I do most of my work in Beacon, and there's this great space on Main Street you should take a look at,” Ciganer recalled.

Ciganer had been to Beacon many times in the 1970s and '80s when he was working on the Clearwater Music Festival. He'd often give Beacon native Pete Seeger a ride down to the festival.

“I always made sure my car doors were locked when I was going through town,” he said with a chuckle. “Beacon was a very different place back then. But I didn't know that my recollection was totally different from what was actually happening here today. So I told him, 'Beacon's not for me.'”

Ciganer searched the Hudson Valley and beyond for the Towne Crier's next home, but nothing felt right. Friends, colleagues and strangers kept urging him to give Beacon another chance. Finally, he returned to Beacon and took a look at the old DMV building on Main Street, which had stood empty for more than 15 years.

“l looked at the space, I took a walk up and down Main Street and the light went off. I thought, 'This is it.'”

Friday night, the lights go on for the Towne Crier's grand reopening. The rootsy psychedelic band The Grand Slamboivans - who was the last band to play the previous incarnation of the Towne Crier back in June - will play to a sold-out house. It will mark not only the next chapter in the Towne Crier's 40-year history, but in Beacon's history as well.

Beacon has come a long way from Ciganer's memories in the 1970s and '80s. When Dia:Beacon opened here in 2002, it kick-started this former industrial town's transformation into a thriving arts community. With the opening of the Towne Crier, it's now poised to also become the live music capital of the Hudson Valley.

Local musician Stephen Clair, who played a warm-up gig at the Towne Crier last weekend to promote his new album, “Love Makes Us Weird,” remembers when this wasn't the case.

Clair moved to Beacon in 2007 and was disappointed that the city had no real live music scene to speak of.

“I wanted to be in a place that had great live original music,” Clair said. “And that's not where I landed.”

He began inviting bands that he knew to come to town and play anywhere he could find a spot: coffeehouses, art galleries, restaurants with outdoor decks, anywhere. When he put on a night of live music at the Howland Cultural Center and packed the place, he realized that the momentum was building. “Without having ever been a presenter of music, I found a community of people who were hungry for it and appreciated it and trusted me.”

Tom Schmitz had a similar realization last year when he opened the bar and live music venue Dogwood at the far west end of Main Street. Like Clair, Schmitz was a Brooklyn expat who came to Beacon in search of something different.

“Brooklyn feels played out,” Schmitz said. “But this feels like Brooklyn felt in 1982: really wide open, lots of opportunity and a nice small community where everyone knows each other. Now is the time for Beacon.” The first night Dogwood opened, Schmitz had the same experience as Clair at the Howland Cultural Center.

“We got hit by a wall of people.”

Schmitz is doubling down on the Beacon revival with the imminent reopening of Quinn's Luncheonette. He took over the beloved Main Street diner a few months ago when the original owner retired. Although he's keeping the decor intact - including the faded brown Canada goose wallpaper and the misspelled sign out front - the menu will be a little different. “We're hoping to open soon as a Japanese restaurant during the day, bar food at night, and when we're ready we're going to look to add live music shows in the future.”

Thanks to Quinn's and the Towne Crier's reopenings, the much maligned middle section of Beacon's Main Street is undergoing a revival of its own. Ciganer points out that while the historic East and West ends of Main Street have flourished, the middle section of Main Street still has remnants of the old Beacon that he used to avoid. “But everyone's cleaning up their act,” he said. “Us being here helps give a facelift to this section of town, and things are really starting to move forward.”

Realtor Charlotte Guernsey of Gate House Realty, who was instrumental in getting the old DMV space on Main Street developed, said there are more people looking to open businesses on Main Street than there are available spaces. She thinks the Towne Crier will finally bring foot traffic to the middle of Beacon's main street.

“It's going to be a great anchor for Main Street and a real destination.”

For his part, Ciganer is so impressed with Beacon that he's been rethinking some previous decisions.

“This is a blossoming community, something we can really contribute to and be in good company right here on Main Street,” he said. “Maybe this is what I should have done in 1972.”

The past can't be changed, but Beacon's future is looking brighter than ever. For Stephen Clair, it's been a long time coming.